“Yes.”
He hesitates. “It has some of my own work in it,” he says. “My poems. I don’t know if you’d—I don’t know. And I should probablywarn you that there are a lot of Rabbie Burns’s poems in there too, and most of them are in Scots. They can be a little tricky to read if you don’t know how.”
“I’ll just ask you to translate for me.”
“Well, that I can do.” He eats another crisp. “You know, I think you’ll like his poetry, actually. He has a poem about one of your favorite things on the planet.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
A teasing glint enters Jacob’s eyes. “Haggis.”
A loud laugh escapes me. “He does not have a whole poem about haggis.”
“He absolutely does. It’s a bit of a classic, really. It’s called ‘Address to a Haggis.’ ”
I laugh again. “I need to know everything about this. Do you remember it? How does it go?”
“I don’t have it memorized, but it ends with ‘Gie her a Haggis.’ ” Jacob’s accent grows deeper as he says it, lilting in new ways. It’s distractingly attractive.
“Meaning?”
“ ‘Give her a haggis.’ ‘Her’ being Scotland. It’s kind of an ode to the country, a patriotic sort of poem.”
“I need to read the full thing. And your thesis.”
Something flickers across his face. “Are you sure? You don’t have to—”
“And give up the chance to read your poetry? No, I absolutely want to. That is, if you’re okay with it.”
He grins, slowly, his expression warm. “All right. I’ll find it for you, then. When we return.” He settles back in his chair. “But enough about me. I want to hear what your new show’s about.”
“Sorry?”
“You said you were working on something new?” Jacob asks.
“Oh. Yeah,” I say. “It’s—we’ve been trying to push for some changes on the show.”
“Changes like…”
I swallow. I haven’t really talked this idea out with anyone yet. It’s so new, but it’s probably good for me to practice, to get some feedback before I send the pitch to Natalie. “My boss and I, we realized that all these shows feature the same kind of love story. Young people looking for love. And with the way the show is marketed, and the celebrity status that people on the show receive, it has become a little…stale. And I was thinking it could be nice to feature more mature couples. People finding each other later in life. People who found love once and are looking for it again, or are finding it for the first time. And instead of throwing everyone on the same beach…”
I glance at him to find him riveted, his eyes fixed on my face. “Yeah?”
“Well.” I laugh. “Maybe it’s a little silly, but I was thinking about our drive up here, and all the stuff that happened, and how—”How it threw the two of us together. How it created the circumstances for me to fall in love.“There are adventure shows like this, where people pair up and go through obstacles.”
“LikeThe Amazing Race,” he says.
“Yes. Exactly. And I thought, what about a show like that, in different countries around the world, where we spend a lot of time in each one? We explore different cities and cultures, and these couples pair up, go on these adventures, with hurdles that we throw at them, all to win a cash prize. And maybe…we explore each of their stories, what their life has been like, and maybe we watch them find love.” I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m still working out the concept, but it feels different from anything on the air right now. And I’ve been wanting to work on something that allows for a little more…exploration. More time to dig deep into each contestant and their story, and this format could allow for that.”
“Neelu, that’s—” Jacob releases a breath, a gentle puff of air. “Have you told your dad about this idea?”
“No.” I frown. “Why?”
The lines around his mouth soften. “No reason. I just…I think he’d like it.”
“Really? I mean, he told me that he was a fan ofLove in the Sun,which I had no idea about, but I don’t know if he’s interested in other reality television.”
“I don’t know if he is,” Jacob says. “But this? He’d find it really special. Knowing that this trip—this trip you took with him—that his story with Maggie, that any of it had inspired this idea. He’d be—” He stops abruptly. “I’m sorry. I know your relationship with your father is really different, and—”
